By Rich Winter

605 Sports

GILLETTE, Wyo. — Colome’s Jack Anderson continued to add to the list of elite trap shooters that hail from Tripp County.

Anderson, who will be a senior at Colome High School, shot scores of 99-95 for a total score of 194 and a third-place finish at the National High School Finals Rodeo trapshooting competition. 

“We started shooting on Thursday and I got off to a really hot start,” Anderson said. 

The multi-sport athlete at Colome nailed his first 75 shots before a single miss stopped him from having a perfect score. 

“Once you shoot the shot you can’t take it back, it’s done,” he said. “You just have to focus on the next shot.”

Anderson’s 99 on Thursday set him up for success on Friday. Only 20 trap shooters made the short-go and Anderson was in third place after the first round. 

The final round wasn’t quite as good as the first but Thursday’s round helped keep Anderson in  contention.

“I came back Friday with a 95 but Thursday’s score helped pull up my average and that really helped me out,” he said.

The son of Samantha West and Dallas Anderson got an early start in competitive shooting.

“My dad took me out for a drive at about age nine and asked me if I’d be interested in starting to shoot,” Anderson said. “He gave me his old Winchester automatic and it continued from there and progressed.”

Anderson will be a senior this fall but he’s been on the Winner trapshooting varsity team since his seventh grade year. And he’s had plenty of local competition to push him in practice. 

Colome graduate Katie Welker now shoots collegiately for Concordia University in Nebraska. Most recently Welker finished second in the collegiate division at the USA Shooting’s 2023 National Junior Olympic Championships on July 3. 

Anderson’s other training partner is Winner senior Jude Sargent who finished 15th in trapshooting competition at the National High School Finals Rodeo. 

“I think a lot of the success I’m having now is because Katie pushed me,” he said. “Now it’s me and Jude and we know how to push each other.”